


hold me

by thir13enth



Category: Altered Carbon (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post episode 10, more like... seconds right after lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 22:15:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13580052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thir13enth/pseuds/thir13enth
Summary: just a while longer.





	hold me

Just another second longer and he’d be completely out her door.

“Wait,” she says. Soft, but without doubt.

He hears her voice —maybe because he was still in earshot, but maybe because he was listening for it — and he slips his fingers through the crack in the closing door before it shuts him out, pulling back the heavy wood and stepping back into the warmth of her home.

She watches him from the lower level of her living room. She hasn’t moved since she wished him luck.

He doesn’t need further prompting. He slowly walks down the steps down to her, his eyes never leaving her. He stops a foot before her, towering over her shorter figure.

Her lips twitch in that nervous way they always do before she says something she doesn’t want to get off her chest. She holds her hands behind her back. Her gaze flickers down to the floor for a moment, wiggling her toes and adjusting her stance before looking back up at him.

“I haven’t properly said goodbye to you yet,” she simply tells him.

He blinks, waiting for her next line.

“So goodbye,” she says.

He nods. “See you,” he replies. His voice catches at the last word, but he doesn’t think she notices.

She smiles, before wrapping her arms up and around him, embracing him tight against her. He hesitates before returning the hug, but when he does, he holds her to him just as strong.

“I’ll miss you,” she tells him.

He rests his chin on her head. “I will, too.”

She sniffles, wiping away a small tear at the corner of her, and then laughs at her own sentiments. “Look at me now. Just a few weeks ago I wanted to rip your heart out and give it to the devil.” She looks up at him, with a playful grin.

He meets her eyes — and that’s when she sees that he’s not smiling, that her joke just reminds him of how painfully close they’ve grown in such a short time, and that he’s just as confused and uncertain as she is about what comes next — and her lighthearted smile slowly fades from her face, replaced by a conflicted purse of her lips.

She grips the fabric of his coat.

He knows what happens after this. She’ll reach up for the base of his neck and close her eyes. She’ll tiptoe to match his height and kiss him. He’ll lean forward to deepen the kiss and breathe her in. He’ll lift her up and she’ll wrap her legs around his torso. They’ll have sex and they’ll fall asleep tangled in her sheets and each other’s limbs and they’ll wake up the next morning still as confused and uncertain as they have been since the first night they crossed this line.

So when she pulls him toward her, he pushes back.

“I should go,” he tells her, but maybe more to himself.

She looks away, down at his chest where her fingers are curled around the lining of his coat. She swallows, agreeing with a small nod. She rests her forehead on him and wraps her arms around him in a tight embrace, once again.

“Stay,” she asks of him. “Just a few seconds longer.”

And as much he knows he shouldn’t, he does.

And even as the seconds turn to minutes and the minutes turn to hours, he does.

**Author's Note:**

> sigh. this is what happens when i get obsessed with a show and its characters and its world.  
> follow along on tumblr @tak-kovacs


End file.
